


partner in crime, my cherry lime

by corduroywords



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, F/F, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, MY HEART IS SO SOFT FOR THESE GIRLFRIENDS !!!!, Texting, allison: lmao babe ive seen u go thru all ur embarrassing phases do u rlly think id be dating u, renee: what if u dont rlly like me :(((
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 16:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17880977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corduroywords/pseuds/corduroywords
Summary: Summers, rain, rosebuds, windows, and the sweetest girl Allison had ever met. Falling in love takes time, and you're allowed to take it.It’s not the first time she’s allowed herself to get vulnerable around someone. But it feels significant in the way that all of the moments have been around Renee and it means something all of a sudden, as Allison leaps up from her bed in a sudden swell of frenzied emotion. She needs to feel innocent again. She needs to go back to herbs and borrowed t-shirts and distant lights and the vague memories from when she was a child.





	partner in crime, my cherry lime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictionalicious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalicious/gifts).



> this is a pr belated gift for the AFTG valentines day exchange 2019 !! my valentine is @sinilumi on tumblr.

 

It rains for the first time in two years on August second, and Allison Reynolds is knee deep in a pile of clothes in her grandmother’s guest bedroom.

She’s twelve years old. The rain falls slowly at first, then pauses before coming down with everything at once outside the window; she can hear it pelting the glass, but doesn’t turn. There’s no significance to the rain to her, nothing noteworthy. 

Allison will learn. 

But for now, she looks down at the pile of dense fabric.

None of the clothes are right for the weather. Her nanny back home had packed cashmere and wool, but it’s hot here. So unbearably hot that when she arrived last night, she’d slept under the bed on the scratched hardwood.

There’s a knock on the door behind her--three quiet raps. “Come in,” Allison says, expecting her grandmother, rubbing thick fabric between her fingertips.

The door opens. She doesn’t look behind her. Back at home, she wasn’t nearly as passive. But here, there’s just wildflowers. Wildflowers and superstition that she doesn’t need to prove herself to. 

“I like your room.” A voice. Girlish, soft. 

Allison whips around. It’s a girl--willowy, around Allison’s age. 

“Thanks,” she mutters absent-mindedly, still taking in the girl. Feeling suddenly very self-conscious, Allison glances around her room as if seeing it for the first time, through the girl’s eyes. Old. Bundles of herbs hung on the walls. A small twin-size. Floorboards that creak. Empty. Thick fabric on the floor. 

They make eye contact, and years later--many, actually, 3, 4, 5--Allison will see the following in perfect clarity:

The girl, rocking from her heels to her toes with her hands behind her back before looking towards the window, and gasping in delight.

The girl, throwing the old windows open, and then--

The girl, smiling at Allison, so big, so bright it took up half her face: “I haven’t seen water from the sky in so long. Open your windows. It’ll make the rooms smell like rain.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Summer felt so big, after that. 

The girl’s name is Renee. Her hair is as light as the way she walks. She’s too mature for her age. Her grandmother calls her a good influence. Allison’s mind calls her a sort of angelic that comes naturally. The kind she wishes she could be.

They fall into an easy relationship immediately. Renee lets her borrow summer clothes: t-shirts with cats and rainbows and cracked printed printed letters; shorts that are thin from frequent wash. Allison gives her all of the sweaters and the fleece. They cut them up together into petal shapes that Alisons’s grandmother sews together into flowers for them that they scatter into the dry fields. 

One time, Renee’s aunt takes them to a carnival two towns over and Allison sees  _ lights _ , not the ones from the windows of the big city office buildings her daddy owns either--but  _ real lights  _ that blur and reflect in Renee’s eyes when she smiles with cotton candy on the side of her mouth. 

There’s summer barbeques, celebrations that don’t involve Allison in stiff dresses, her daddy telling her to be silent, her mommy telling her to “Stand up straighter, there, just like that, now don’t move--”, her parents complimenting other important people that she knows they don’t mean. Here, it’s all  _ real _ , even if she’s too young to put a word to it yet, and when she says that snarky thing that would have earned her a smack at home, they laugh with their heads thrown back and Renee smiles that small, secretive smile with her head propped on her elbow.

It’s also the only birthday she celebrated where she wished for something else than her parents to be home.  

It doesn’t rain after that, not for the entire summer--but nevertheless, Allison laughs more than she has in years; she’d never known beauty like five families drying flowers, the taste of desert cherries straight off the tree was, such  _ vastness.  _

Her parents didn’t call, and that was alright.

Renne was alright, too. 

Allison was alright. 

They were alright, they were fine, okay, perfectly well, immersed in summer.

 

* * *

 

Allison leaves after two months of uninterrupted joy. 

Her grandmother had sat her down, hugged her, and slipped two small acorns and three fragrant dried rosebuds into her pocket. 

Renee had held her hand the entire way to Allison’s parents’ car, and squeezed her hand twice before letting go with a sad smile, saying, “Open your windows more.” 

And then Allison had gotten in the car, not looking up, not looking back.

Her parents don’t say hello when she gets on, and they sit in silence the entire way home. It was probably her own fault, Allison thinks, staring on the window with her hands on her lap. She sees a piece of grass in her hair from the corner of her eye. She shouldn’t have gotten so used to easy conversation, easy smiles.

 

* * *

 

It’s the oddest feeling, going back to the city. 

Her nanny is the only one that greets her. There’s a cheque tucked in the back pocket of her slacks. When she asks if Allison brought back souvenirs, she says no, feeling the weight of the two acorns and the three rosebuds in her coat pocket as she takes it off. 

She goes to her first day of middle school next week. 

That night, she lies awake, staring at her ceiling. Allison lasts eight minutes before getting up and walking to her coat where it hangs on the hook of her door (not old, not cracked, no herbs hanging from it) and retrieving a rosebud. 

The moonlight makes everything look pretty, she thinks, turning it between her fingers this way and that when she’s back in bed, holding it up. Eventually, sleep takes her like summer did: unwanted, unexpected, what she needs. 

_ Open your windows.  _

Her shutters are locked at home.

 

* * *

 

Her school is private, locked to everyone except for trust funds. There’s crisp uniforms and a budget that overflows necessities. When she escapes to the fields at lunch, there’s golf club lawns with kids talking about vacations and parties instead of dried overgrown grass with two girls picking wildflowers. 

But this is where she knows how to thrive. 

She picks out the most popular group of girls within seconds. You know it’s them because of the way they listen to each other talk--with insincere smiles and a mind that’s not paying attention but instead planning how they’ll top the statements; the way they dress, with their uniforms pressed and sneaking in the little signs of wealth with diamonds in their hair and charms on their wrists; the way their eyes look around cooly while tucking their hair back; the space that they inhabit: the base of a tree, in the centre of the yard. 

Allison strides up, flicks her hair back, and asks them what their daddies and mommies do for a living. 

Playing her cards right, Allison is at the top of the food chain by the next week. 

It feels good, to be seen, to be envied. She learns to put on eyeliner and curl her own hair. She learns how to shop for herself without the employees asking her where her parents are. She starts kissing boys and keeps herself distracted by spreading drama and making her own gossip. 

The school year drags on. 

And she watches the clock. 

In June, everyone is asking each other about vacations.  _ What part of Europe? East or West? How many cruises are you taking?  _

And it reminds Allison. It feels so far away now. The heat, the peeling wood… It’s lost in the overwhelming city bustle.

 

* * *

 

She’s shipped back to the town two weeks later and there’s flurries in her stomach, an excited swooping as she spots the house, the fields, the aunts and parents and grandparents with their baskets of herbs and tanned skin. 

And then Allison sees Renee, and Renee sees Allison. Before she can react, Renee is sprinting over and pulling Allison into a hug. “Hi,” Renee says, all toothy. 

She looks the same. Same sun-kissed skin, same soft eyes. Renee was too soft, too innocent.

“Hi,” Allison breathes back, hearing the car behind her pull away as she takes everything in. The contrast to the social ladders, the facades, the relationship push and pulls, the extravagance…

“Middle school’s a hell-hole,” she declares, surprising herself. Renee eyebrows raise, but she’s still smiling. “Let’s go,” Allison says, taking Renee’s hand.

 

* * *

 

This time is different--more vivid, more fast-paced. They tell each other secrets and Allison has never felt close to anyone before, never like this. 

It was undeniably summer still though, slow and sweet and sweltering. 

And then she leaves again.

 

* * *

 

The next year is uneventful. Her parents travel, work. Her dried rosebud is crushed from all her times holding it. Middle school is getting harder, and she’s snapped at people so often that her guidance counsellor has a permanent spot on his couch for her and knows her favourite tea. 

Nothing happens except that she kissed a girl she met at her piano lessons, pulled her right by the sides of her cardigan and pressed a kiss, right to the lips. It was just to try, just to know how it feels. The girl kissed her back. 

Allison had kissed plenty of boys before. It was fun, funner to watch them trip over their words and spend their allowances on her. But girls’ lips were softer, she thought, and girls’ voices were sweeter when they whispered in her ear. Though not many really had, just--

Renee.

All in all, she’s looking forward to summer. 

But ten months later her nanny gives her a suitcase and a small bag with a plane ticket and a passport. “I booked you someone to help you through the airport,” she says, as if Allison can’t cruise through herself and knows every single pilot by name through her parents’ franchise. “You’ll get a sticker that says--”

“I don’t get it.”

“You’re going to meet your parents at the Alps, and the plane ride will be around--”

“I’m not going to the Alps,” Allison says harshly, and throws the suitcase to the ground. “Fuck off. I’m going to see Renee, and you’re getting me a driver.” 

“Allison,” Her nanny says slowly, pacifying, “We’re not going there anymore. That was just for a few years when your parents were busy with a deal and I wouldn’t be able to take care of you.” 

“You’re kidding.” 

“Allison…” 

“What’s Renee going to say? Did anyone even fucking tell her?” Allison throws her hand up, and frustrated tears come to her eyes that she forces back. 

“...Who’s Renee?” Her nanny asks softly after a pause. She’s scared of Allison, in the way that zookeepers are scared of the lions they’re paid to keep. 

But Allison’s already ripped open the door and stepped outside, leaving it ajar behind her. 

She calls the girl from piano on the curb. “Hello?” Allison hears. 

“Come over,” Allison says.

“I can’t, I’m--”

“Then I’m coming to you right now,” Allison says, hailing a taxi when she sees the flash of yellow. 

 

* * *

 

She starts thinking about Renee somewhere between the second and third year she doesn’t go. 

Allison had stopped kissing the girl, and had started spending money on things she didn’t need to fill the holes she refused to see in her life. When she hit sixteen, her nanny was laid off and her house started being littered with people she should have liked but wore clothes she did. 

She received a text two hours prior to the thoughts:

**Unknown Number**

(8:26) Hi. It’s Renee. I got your number through your nanny. It’s been a while :)

It takes Allison a few minutes to text back, her heart thumping. 

**Allison**

(8:29) Jesus fuck is it actually u 

Another text comes: another smiley face, then a photo of Renee in what looks a group photo with a girl’s volleyball team. It took a second to find her, but there she was: in the back, smiling serenely, her hair short and bleached and colourful near the tips. Her face has matured but her eyes are just as bright as they were at twelve years old and she is so goddamn radiant it makes Allison do a double take. 

**Allison**

(8:30) Hi

Catching up takes all night, then all week, until her phone is taken away regularly in class and her friends tease her about what new boy’s heart she’ll break but when she snaps at them to shut up they quiet down and Allison can go back to hiding soft, quiet smiles behind her hand. 

She sends a picture of herself at a convention with her classmates and Renee replied with a smiley face again. 

Allison can taste heat on her tongue and feels cold droplets from an ice tea glass and smells dry grass. 

She can feel Renee. 

 

* * *

 

Allison’s curled up in her bed, her cocoon illuminated from the light of her phone. Another summer has passed, and she refused to go anywhere. She turned 17 a bit ago, but she feels twelve again when she opens up her messages app again. 

2:17, her bedside clock reads. She went to bed at midnight, when she was supposed to be at a party but after new drama surrounding her unfurled she’d spent the past few hours flitting through her contacts as she explained and fought and tugged on strained relationships in an attempt to douse the fire. 

**Allison**

(2:18) I miss u. 

(2:19) I know ur asleep but i just miss those two summers, even if they weren’t long at all 

(2:19) Is it weird that i feel rlly rlly close to u even if we were only friends when we were twelve

It’s not the first time she’s allowed herself to get vulnerable around someone. But it feels significant in the way that all of the moments have been around Renee and it means something all of a sudden, as Allison leaps up from her bed in a sudden swell of frenzied emotion. She needs to feel innocent again. She needs to go back to herbs and borrowed t-shirts and distant lights and the vague memories from when she was a child. 

She needs to get away from all this bullshit, she thinks as she grabs her keys. She needs to drive, she thinks as she checked her face in the mirror, rubbing all of her smudged makeup off until she was barefaced--an Allison she hadn’t seen in so long. 

The drive is long and determined and quiet. Three hours. Allison loses track of time and zones out, her heart racing as headlights zoom past and the cold night air whipping into her face from her open roof car. Her senses only come back when she glances at her phone’s directions to see that there was an hour left. Narrowing her eyes, Allison steps on the gas. She can make it there in forty.

“You’ve arrived at your destination,” her phone states, and she finds the nearest roadside to park at. Belatedly, Allison realizes that there’s light raindrops on her car windows. Opening her door, she’s greeted with the lightest drizzle. “Fuck,” she laughs incredulously. 

The grass is as damp as it will ever get when she steps onto it at 5 am with two acorns and the remains of her roses. She knows where Renee’s house is by heart, and makes it there with her phone flashlight. Eventually, she realizes that her heels aren’t doing anything for her and rips them off with a grunt. 

Allison walks barefoot only a few minutes when she comes under a window on the second story of a small beige house. She takes a breath before taking her acorns out and pulling her arm back with one in hand.

Her aim had always been good. 

It lands, and only ten seconds later she hears a rustling and then sees a streak of bleached hair and pretty eyes before they settle and squint at her. Renee, her heart thumps. She needs Renee. 

And then it starts raining harder and it’s the best she’s felt in so, so long. “Open your windows!” Allison shouts with her hands cupped over her mouth with her heels in one hand. “It’ll make it smell like rain!” 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://beefy-keefy.tumblr.com/) [twitter (where im more active)](https://twitter.com/beefykeefy) hope u enjoyed!! kudos n comments are appreiciated as always <33


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